Google Pixel 4 could include True Tone-like display feature

In addition to hands-free gestures, it appears the Pixel 4’s display will include a True Tone-like auto white balance feature.

Apple first introduced True Tone alongside the 9.7-inch iPad Pro in 2016. Since then, the feature, which attempts to adjust the colour temperature and intensity of a device’s display to surrounding ambient light, has made its way to a variety of other Apple products, including the most recent iPhones. In practice, True Tone makes a display look more natural at night. Apple also claims that it helps reduce eye strain.

XDA Developers discovered a placeholder setting in Android Q that allows users to enable a “display white balance” setting. To date, the website hasn’t been able to get the feature to work with the current crop of Pixel smartphones. After additional digging, XDA found out that the feature requires a sensor that’s not present on the Pixel 3 and other prior Google phones.

The website also found the feature likely won’t work with the Pixel’s ‘Saturated’ colour profile because it’s not correctly colour managed and calibrated.

We’ll have to see if the code XDA found amounts to anything, but if it does, the promise here is that the Pixel 4 will deliver a significantly better display experience than the Pixel 3. That’s something worth getting excited about.